The Body Remembers Joy Too: Using Somatic Awareness to Anchor Positive Emotions
- Elevate Mental Health
- Jul 18
- 3 min read
We often talk about how the body stores trauma, pain, or stress. But what’s less understood—and equally powerful—is how the body stores and remembers joy.
Your body is not just a container for stress; it is also a vessel for healing. And one of the most powerful tools for personal transformation is learning to tune into the body and build what therapists call somatic awareness. This awareness not only helps process difficult emotions, it helps you anchor positive ones, making joy a more consistent and embodied experience.
The Connection Between Somatic Awareness and Positive Emotions
Somatic awareness refers to your ability to notice and interpret what is happening in your body—your breath, heartbeat, posture, muscle tension, and more. When paired with positive emotional states, this awareness becomes a gateway to lasting change.
When you feel joy, your body responds. Muscles relax. Breathing deepens. The chest may feel warm or expansive. The nervous system, particularly the ventral vagal state (the part responsible for social engagement and safety), becomes active. These physical sensations are not just side effects of happiness—they are part of how your brain encodes and stores that feeling.
By learning to notice and return to those physical experiences of joy, you strengthen your brain’s ability to recognize, recall, and recreate those emotions more easily in the future.
Recommended Read:
Anchored by Deb Dana — a practical guide to polyvagal theory in everyday life
Listen:
Polyvagal Podcast with Deb Dana
The Science of Happiness – Greater Good Science Center
Why Positive Emotions Need to Be Felt, Not Just Noticed
It’s one thing to say, “I’m happy,” and another to truly feel happiness in your body. When you bring attention to how joy feels physically—whether it’s the lightness in your chest or the warmth in your belly—you strengthen the neural pathways that allow that emotion to become more accessible.
Studies in affective neuroscience suggest that positive emotional experiences, when paired with somatic attention, lead to greater retention and psychological impact. This means your joy lasts longer—and becomes easier to return to—even during hard times.
Research Link:
Simple Somatic Practices to Anchor Joy
Want to train your body to hold onto the good? Here are three therapist-approved practices to try:
1. Body Scan with a Joyful Memory
Close your eyes and bring to mind a moment that made you feel happy, peaceful, or loved. Then scan your body slowly from head to toe. Where do you feel warmth, openness, tingling, or calm? Linger there.
2. Gentle Movement
Joy often lives in movement. Try stretching, dancing, or shaking out your limbs when you feel a positive emotion. This not only moves energy, it imprints the emotion into your nervous system.
3. Hand-to-Heart Anchoring
When you feel joy, place your hand on your heart and take three slow breaths. This simple act tells your body, “This moment matters,” and builds a connection between emotion and physical presence.
Somatic Awareness as a Tool for Therapy and Growth
In therapy, we use somatic awareness to help clients identify how they carry both pain and joy. For clients who are disconnected from their bodies due to trauma or chronic stress, this work is especially powerful. It builds internal safety, emotional regulation, and self-trust.
Rather than just talking about happiness, therapy can help you feel it more deeply and more often, even when life feels complicated.
Over time, somatic awareness and positive emotions work hand in hand to shift your baseline state from surviving to thriving.
What If You’ve Forgotten What Joy Feels Like?
If tuning into joy feels unfamiliar or hard, you’re not alone. Many people come to therapy because they know what hurts—but not what feels good anymore. That’s okay.
Therapy offers a safe space to rediscover not only who you are, but how joy feels in your body. And from there, healing becomes something you can actually feel—not just something you’re trying to think your way into.
If you're in the Los Angeles, Ventura County, Santa Barbara or surrounding areas, we would be happy to get you connected with one of our licensed therapists. If you are outside of California then consider searching "therapist near me" to guide you to an experienced therapist experience in trauma work.
Your Team at Elevate Mental Health
805.244.6919
Camarillo, California
*Please note that names have been changed or removed to protect the privacy of the person(s) shared.